Currently nForce2 family features two Northbridges: discrete nForce2-ST or nForce2-GT with integrated GeForce4 MX GPU. I must admit that IGP (Integrated Graphics Processor) of new nForce-GT has been considerably improved to provide better perofrmance than GeForce2 of the previous nForce. The new built-in GeForce4 MX GPU operates at 250 MHz and supports DirectX 8. During the presentation NVIDIA announced some impressive test results of new nForce2 boards. Here´s a couple of them, and more detailed performance results is to be available from our test lab.

The motherboards based on this chipset also feature AGP 8» slot that can be used not only for an add-in card, but also for DVI/TV Riser Card promoted by NVIDIA, that enables DVI and TV jacks, respectively.

Besides, the Southbridge or MCP (Media Communication Processor) will also have two modifications:

ö

MCP-T

MCP

IEEE 1394

+



USB 2.0

+

+

MAC

NVIDIA + 3Com

NVIDIA

APU

+



IDE

Ultra ATA/133

Ultra ATA/133

AC´97

+

+

So, there are four variants of nForce 2 South/Northbridge configurations.

The following nForce2 motherboards were presented at the press conference:

A7N8X from ASUSTeK  nForce2-ST solution

NV7II-8x from ABIT  nForce2-ST solution, RAID controller,

EP-8RDA+ from EPoX  nForce2-ST solution

EP-8RGA+ from EPoX  nForce2-GT solution

Apogee 7NJS from Chaintech  nForce-GT solution

7NIF1 from Chaintech  Micro ATX, nForce2-GT solution

K7N2 from MSI  nForce2-GT solution

Shuttle Computer has not only shown its nForce2 board, but also presented a complete barebone solution.

Speaker developers continue to surprise us all the time, making interesting and odd novelties. Now Pioneer presented a mobile inflatable speaker, designed for using in aircrafts (due to its extremely low weight, I guess) and cars.

The company has already presented several non-typical portables like paper speaker, Music Pillow speaker and a special one for bathrooms  Happy Aqua.

SGI and Nokia signed the agreement about the joint development of an OpenGL-based 3D platform for mobile phones.

According to the document, the standard will be developed by Khronos Group, known by its game consoles and aircraft electronics. Khronos´s development will contain J2ME. The signed agreement enables to port OpenGL application code to mobiles.